


Strange as Angels

by gloss



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Awful Teens, Best Friends, Gen, Non-binary character, alternative paths to lyctorhood, memespeak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: It's hard being a teen necromancer. It's hard, and no one understands.
Relationships: Isaac Tettares & Jeannemary Chatur
Comments: 16
Kudos: 58
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. ante mortem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feverbeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/gifts).



> many thanks to L, G, & K for brainstorming + handholding; title from The Cure.

“Don’t know why we even _came_.” Isaac slumped a little lower in his chair. “No one takes us seriously.”

“No one even notices us,” Jeannemary said from the center of the room. She was running through footwork routines with Magnus, who was getting flushed and shiny. Other than her hair frizzing out in various directions, she didn’t show other signs of exertion. “We might as well be _ghosts_.”

Isaac lifted his head with great effort and pointed at her. “Ghosts have missions. Things to accomplish. _Goals_. Us? We’re just scenery.”

“You’re ridiculous, is what you are.” Abigail pushed a thick pamphlet across the table toward him. The staples in the binding were rusted, sunk down into the spine. “Do a little reading, why don’t you?”

“What’s the poiiiiiiiiiiint?” Isaac moaned. 

Abigail swatted his hand with another pamphlet. It sent up a cloud of fine dust that then hung above the table between them. “This is an opportunity most would give their thanergetic _spleen_ for, baron.”

“Yeah, but they’d actually get to do stuff,” Isaac protested. 

“You can do stuff.” He shook his head but before he could summon the energy to ask _like what?_ , she continued. “Read, for instance, take advantage of the finest resources this side of the Sixth House. Explore the spooky resonances all aquiver throughout this place.”

“But don’t explore _too_ far,” Magnus put in. His wife nodded at that, but Jeannemary snorted and scored a good hit. Magnus staggered dramatically, free arm whirling, before catching himself on a balustrade. “This place is falling part. Can’t have a necro or his ever-sneaky cav breaking a collarbone off in some upper-floor wreck, then starving to death because no one knows where you’ve gotten to.”

“At least that’d be something,” Isaac said.

Magnus was busy fending off a beat attack from Jeannemary, their swords clanging. Abigail said, without looking up from her notes, “It would be something, but nothing _desirable_.”

“Ugh,” Isaac said, as curtly and with as much finality as possible. When she didn't react, he said it again. Just for the record.

*

On their way to the dining room, they dropped Abigail off at the library, but not before Magnus extracted a promise from her to eat as well as a kiss that went on far too long for Jeannemary and Isaac’s comfort. Abigail and Magnus were okay, tolerable even, so far as olds went, but they insisted on being _so_ gross about physical affection.

“Like, keep your hands to yourself!” Jeannemary whispered while they waited for Magnus. “At least make sure no witnesses are around!”

“Or, like. _Just don’t_ ,” Isaac replied. “How hard is that??” The lilt at the end of his question managed to include the doubled punctuation.

Jeannemary frowned. “That's what I just said.”

“No, you said —”

“Whatever, point is: Gross. Wait for some privacy. Spare the rest of us.”

“Cover of darkness is good,” he agreed.

“The better to hide my shame, eh?” Magnus boomed, _right behind_ them. He slung his arms around their shoulders, then tightened the hold when they both squirmed to get free. “Indulge an old decrepit, won’t you? Who knows how many days I have left to draw my wretched breath?”

“Ew, _Magnus_!” Jeannemary twisted one way, shoved the other, and escaped, bounding off several steps ahead. “You’re so weird!”

Isaac tried her move, but he was never going to be as quick as Jeannemary. He just ended up smooshed against Magnus’s side. He smelled like old leathers and sword polish, just like Jeannemary did. It was pleasant, comforting, even, not that he’d ever tell Magnus that. 

Over their food, once the skeleton waiter had click-clacked away, Isaac and Jeannemary renewed their complaints.

“Which is it, small-but-mighty pals o’mine? You’re ignored or you’re not taken serious?”

“Both,” Jeannemary said at the same time that Isaac said, “What’s the difference?”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “One's a lack of respect. The other's a matter of perception.”

“Well, they both suck,” Isaac said.

“You want me to get you some attention? I could get you some attention!”

There was something in Magnus's face, or maybe his tone, that made Isaac shrivel inside his own skin. Attention would be even worse being ignored! Especially whatever it was that Magnus could make happen. _That_ sort of attention was bound to be loud, and bright, and all but guaranteed to make Isaac want to die on the spot.

“Nah, I'm good,” he muttered and shoveled more soup into his mouth.

“Necros,” Magnus said to Jeannemary. They had this way of talking about Isaac like he was a specimen, like he wasn't even there. “Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em off.”

“Lest they come back twice as powerful,” Jeannemary finished for him and their laughter made Isaac's teeth hurt.

*

Abigail specialized in history. She should have been closer to the Sixth than the Fourth. Everything she was good at concerned looking backward (in time) or across the river (to the souls of the departed). But a Fourth necro had to look _forward_ , had to move ahead and keep going, as far as they could.

“Is that really how it is?” Abigail asked when he tried to explain. They were in her study; Jeannemary and Magnus were off in the basement gymnasium. Much as he hated physical exertion (not to mention being _seen_ in the midst of exertion), Isaac kind of wished he were with them. Studying with Abigail was _hard_. And that annoyed him, on a very deep level.

“Isn’t it?”

She shrugged, squinting at a passage in the pamphlet in her hand. She marked it with her finger before she looked up. “I’m asking you.”

“You’re the older one,” he pointed out.

“So rude,” she said lightly. “I’m more experienced, to be sure, but do I know more?”

“If you don’t,” Isaac said, “we’re probably both in big trouble.”

That earned one of her rare laughs. “Fair enough, fair enough.”

“But, I mean,” he went on, determined for once to get her to understand him. “I _am_ right about the facing forward thing. That’s what we _do_. You study and stuff, we...like. Forge ahead and fight.”

“I fight,” she said. “And you study.”

“Yeah, but, like...” He _knew_ he was right, that he had a good point, but it was slipping from his grasp. He couldn't say it correctly and, anyway, Abigail was so smart, she’d always be able to out-argue him. “Forget it.”

“I want to hear it,” she said.

“Forward into the fight,” he said. It felt like he was reciting someone else’s words, and inaccurately to boot, “versus, like, studying what’s gone.”

“Different orientations, perhaps,” she suggested. The way she tilted her head and her brows drew together, she actually seemed to be considering what he'd said. He tried to savor that moment before his nerves took hold all over again. “Yet here we are, together.”

He thought that over. _Got your back,_ Jeannemary liked to say, even though she usually went first in their training skirmishes.

“I think, perhaps,” Abigail continued, and the dreamy, musing tone in her voice as well as the way she leaned forward, looking past him into the middle distance, told Isaac that she was thinking as she spoke. “Perhaps you’re too hung up on the traditional qualities of each house. Just because Quarters are known for plunging forward and Fivers for consulting the departed...just because those are our strengths, they aren’t _all_ we do. Together, we can do many things.”

He grinned. “Now you sound like a Cohort recruiting poster.”

“The last thing I’d like to resemble,” she said and made an elaborately disgusted face. “But you take my meaning anyway?”

It was that, her quiet trust that he _did_ understand her, that made Isaac love Abigail all over again. “I guess,” he replied. “It’s just...cheesy when you say it out loud.”

“Well, then, my dear little edgelord,” she said sweetly and winked, “I’ll try to find my ironic-detachment filter and get it working again.”

She was joking, but he’d be so much more comfortable if she did that. _So_ much more.

*

He and Jeannemary were stalking one of the skeleton spies. This one was usually a waiter, but they’d spotted it on the other side of the atrium with a carton in its arms.

“It’s him!” Jeannemary insisted. “Ol’ Crackley!” They’d named him that their first morning when he’d served them breakfast, his ankle and toe joints wheezing and popping as he moved.

“He’s not Crackles,” Isaac said. “What would he be doing out here? He's a waiter.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “It’s not mealtime, genius.”

“What _do_ they do, anyway? Don’t you wonder?” This was far from the first time he’d asked.

“Now’s our chance,” Jeannemary said, drawing flush against the wall. “Let’s follow him.”

She kept her hand on the hilt of her sword while Isaac murmured the first two-thirds of a defensive ward, and then they were off, moving as slinkily and silently as they could. Jeannemary was great at sneaking; Isaac felt far too conscious of his feet, and then his hands, to match her. Still, they made it around the far edge of the atrium and up the first set of stairs quickly enough that the skeleton was only just rounding the corner at the top of the stairs.

They tiptoed down the corridor in its wake. It paused at the very end, as if hesitating. That was impossible, Isaac reminded himself. They didn’t _think_. Jeannemary stopped and held out her arm to prevent him from going forward. They glanced at each other, shrugged, and watched as Crackley swung decisively to the left, then the right, and proceeded through a narrow doorway.

“I’ll go,” Jeannemary whispered. “See where he’s headed.”

“I’m coming, too.”

“I’m just _peeking_ , I’ll be right back —“

Isaac took hold of her robe at the shoulder and glared at her, challenging her to dislodge him.

“ _Fine_ ,” she said and pushed ahead, too quickly for him to follow quietly without letting go.

And so they went on, up and down short corridors, following Crackles as he wove his way through one wing of Canaan House. He did not seem to have any particular destination so much as a series of stops for removing items from the carton or, alternatively, adding them.

It didn’t make any sense. By the time they reached one of the decaying plastic tape barriers that were everywhere in Canaan House, they were in a part of the house they’d never seen. A few hours had passed.

“My sweet young friends from the most fidelious Fourth!” Teacher exclaimed as he hurried toward them. He stopped just short of the plastic tape and waved his hands. “Come no farther, please! The floor here is highly untrustworthy!” His smile took up more than half of his small, wrinkled face. He looked like half a beetle nut back home, split open to get at the meat inside. “Perhaps Baron Tettares would not crash through, slim as he is, but I make no promises!”

“Did he just call me fat?” Jeannemary asked behind her hand and under her breath.

“More like I'm scrawny,” Isaac said.

Still grinning, Teacher looked back and forth between them. “I'm so sorry, it's just too dangerous for you.”

“We —” Isaac started.

“What's back there, anyway?” Jeannemary asked. Isaac was grateful, for the millionth time in his life, that she was so brash and unruffled. He was also annoyed, for the million-and-first time, that she always spoke over him.

“We're the necro scion and cav primary of the Fourth House,” Isaac said; he had to raise his voice, so he sounded like he was whining. He wished the floor would just open up _now_ and take him out of his misery. “Surely we can handle whatever it is.”

“Ah, ah, how _interesting_ ,” Teacher said, his hands twisting around each other over his belly. “How very interesting.”

He wasn't going to answer any of their questions. Isaac knew that, but he also knew that Jeannemary would take a lot of convincing. He just hoped that, for once, she'd follow his lead.

“Let's go,” Isaac said, taking her elbow and pulling her back. “We've got that thing, don't forget.”

They'd made it about three steps before Teacher called, “I say, brave and faithful Quarters! Would you like to see something...unusual?”

They stopped in mid-stride and glanced at each other, already nodding.

“This better be good,” Jeannemary said. Isaac wished he'd thought to say that.

“I would rather drink down the sea than disappoint any of my guests,” Teacher replied, chortling. He stepped over the plastic tape and indicated the large room open to their left. “Why, I'd prefer to be speared through the bowels, souls escaping on ragged wings like an unkindness of ravens!”

 _That_ particularly ghastly image did not stay long in Isaac's memory, given what they saw next. The room was empty of all furniture, and the windows were covered with dust-heavy drapery. But in the center of the tiled floor, Crackley the skeleton and another skeleton raised their swords to each other, bowed, and began dueling.

They moved fluidly, gracefully, like any pair of well-trained cavaliers. They weren't like any skeleton construct Isaac had ever seen, or even read about.

“This is cool as _eff_ ,” Jeannemary breathed and gripped Isaac's arm hard enough to bruise. “How do you make them do that?”

“ _Make_ , young lady?” Teacher clapped a few times, as if rewarding her for an especially witty remark. “There's no compulsion in Canaan House! There is only, if you'll forgive the expression, rather an abundance of free will!”

“There must be _some_ control,” Isaac mused. “At least initially. Something to..." He struggled to find the right terms. “Set it all going?”

Teacher looked at him, so intent suddenly that Isaac had the stray paranoid suspicion that someone else was looking through Teacher's eyes. Just for a moment, before Teacher laughed merrily again and tapped his forefinger against the side of his nose. “Perhaps, your lord. Perhaps! I certainly wouldn't know anything about that!”

Before Isaac could say anything more, Crackley was bent backward under a furious coulé that made him drop his sword.

"Aww, Crackles!" Jeannemary hurried forward to retrieve his weapon and congratulate the winner.

Isaac turned to Teacher, only to find the little man gone.

*

Sometimes Magnus was a bully. He was loud and pushed them around, convinced that he knew best and they were just little kids to corral and boss. Other times, he reminded Isaac of an ideal big brother, the kind that Isaac wished he could be to his own siblings, if only he weren't such an awkward mess. The weird thing was that, all those times, he was just Magnus. The category for him changed according to Isaac's mood. It didn’t have anything to do with Magnus himself. His intentions were always clear and readily stated: he just wanted those he cared about to be safe and flourish.

“But why’s he got to care about us?” Isaac mumbled. It was late and they were alone, finally, well past the time they were usually sent to bed back home. “No one asked him to. He’s not even of our house.”

Jeannemary shrugged. “Tell him to fuck off, then.”

They stared at each other, mutually shocked by the suggestion. Gradually, their astonishment dissolved to delight and they started laughing, huge gulping bellows of laughter accompanied by streaming, stinging tears. They collapsed against each other, shoulders heaving, and tried, and failed, and tried again, to stop laughing.

“Can you imagine?”

“He’d lose his shit!”

“He’d just, like. _Wild out_ , oh my GOD.”

Jeannemary drew herself up and puffed out her chest. The voice she used for Magnus was reedy and not nearly booming enough, but it was deeper than anything Isaac could currently manage. “Well, then, chums, off I go, watch me fuck off...”

“Fiddley-dee, ho hum, a-fucking off I shall go,” Isaac chimed in, and the laughter resumed.

Much later, well after the subject had changed and they’d drifted off into a thousand different conversational directions, Isaac said into the darkness, “I wouldn’t, though.”

“Wouldn’t what?” Jeannemary asked, her voice thick with sleep.

“Tell Magnus to fuck off.”

She turned on her back and fumbled through the quilts to find his hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. He’d probably cry, anyway.”

They giggled at that, sleepily. Good old Magnus.

*

“Where were we?” Abigail murmured, spreading out the flimsies on the table before them. 

Isaac didn’t say, “Theories of thanergetic conversion,” though that was the right answer.

Abigail pressed her lips together as she shuffled and reorganized the flimsies. After several moments of silence, she said, as if reminding herself of a task to do later, “You have an extraordinary opportunity here.”

“Yeah.” He picked at the black polish on his thumbnail. 

“Don’t believe me?” She glanced over, a faint smile on her face. When she took in his expression — whatever it is, Jeannemary always claimed he must have had RBF in the womb — she sighed and fiddled with the long braid over her shoulder. “Isaac. This is hardly the worst thing ever.”

“I know,” he muttered. He did know that. Visiting Canaan House was remarkable, astounding, all those great words. He ought to have been grateful. He ought to have been jumping out of bed every morning, eager to learn and absorb the wisdom of his elders. He chewed the inside of his cheek and made himself meet Abigail’s eyes. “I’m trying.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” 

“No one cares!” He hadn't meant to shout. Maybe he did; it did feel good. Sure that Abigail was frowning now, he added, “Sorry.”

“What does it matter?”

“What’s what matter?”

“Isaac.” She lifted an eyebrow and regarded him levelly. _You’re no dummy,_ she didn't have to say. _You know what I meant._

He sat forward, taking hold of the first flimsy he touched. “Thanergetic conversion,” he said and shook the flimsy so it made that woo-woo-wow sound. “That’s where we were.”

“Nice try.” Abigail tossed back her braid. As she drew herself up, she shifted from the woman he knew better than his own mother and most of his aunts, his fond tutor and exasperated babysitter, into the formidable necromancer she was. “What of where we _are_?”

“The library?” He shook his head immediately, both to apologize for the snarkiness and dismiss that answer. Philosophical questions drove Jeannemary bonkers; Isaac usually liked them. ( _That’s how they identify necros,_ Magnus often said. _Got a question with no sensible answer? Find the necro who asked it._ ) “Canaan House. The lyctor trials?”

“Yes,” Abigail said, as if he’d asked a single question.

He gnawed on a cuticle and thought it over. “This whole place is death. Not just the house.”

“No,” she agreed. Her voice is soft.

“Can you hear what they want?”

“Who’s that, Isaac?” She was almost whispering. Her eyes were dark.

“The dead,” he said. “The...” He groped for the word, like he was swimming and could find neither bottom nor shore. “Slain?”

“No,” she admitted, “I can’t.”

“But they’re here.”

Her head was in her hands now, her shoulders shaking. “They must be. _Something_ is here.”

“That’s what Teacher says.”

Abigail lifted her face and said, blinking fast, “I don’t know how much of what he says to trust.”

“But he said —” The doubt cleaved him, a cold shudder that left pebble-studded slush in its wake. “He said he wouldn’t lie.”

She started to smile, her entire expression softening, sort of melting together. Her pity might as well have been a detonating corpse between them. _You poor stupid child_ , he could almost hear her say. He waved his hand as if he could erase his own stupidity. “Forget it.”

To her credit, Abigail did not argue with him. Then again, maybe she didn't see any point to arguing. He was probably just that inconsequential to her. His skin went hot, just thinking about it, and his eyes burned and stung. 

“Ugh,” he said and tightened his arms around his chest. “Forget it, never mind.”

“I think we’re onto something,” Abigail replied. “This planet, not just this house, is a hecatomb. What can we do with that?”

“Inconceivably foul feats of necromantic transgression?” he asked, quoting Teacher, and hoped like hell that she smiled at the bad joke.

She did. Not much of a smile, but enough to ease the worst of his overheated anxiety. “Certainly. What else?”

Sometimes, like now, his mind just stuttered to a stop. He couldn't think any more. All he could think of was how much he could not think; he was far too aware of the pain in his cuticle, how his left foot was growing numb from being folded under him so long, of the overlong lock of hair that kept dipping over his eye and tickling his cheek.

These were the moments, Abigail insisted, that were the most powerful: when he no longer _thought_ , but _did_. He was close to an answer, about to commit a deed both insightful and courageous. He'd probably just screw it up, though.

“I'm hungry,” he said and stood up. His numb foot made him stumble, but he caught himself against the table. “That's what I can do with this place. Eat and, like. Chill. Older nerds can solve the great questions of the age.”

He hurried away before she could say anything.


	2. post mortem

After he dies, Isaac finds himself in a stairwell. It is narrow, not wide enough for two adults to stand side by side, and turns at narrow blind landings. The steps are dark stone and uneven, worn down in the centers by years, millennia, of treads; they are bowed upward on either side like some ghastly grin that repeats upward into the dark. The banister is only occasionally bolted securely to the interior wall; for long stretches, it is entirely absent. The wall on the other side is hung with tapestries. They blow inward, however, tangling his feet. The wind is hot and salty as tears. 

He peeks through the gap between two drapes and nearly crumples to his knees at the sight out there of the ocean and blinding sky. The wall is missing here, simply gone. A misstep would have sent him plummeting toward the waves. They crawl and crimp far below. They look exactly like, and no larger than, streaks of chalk on Abigail’s robe.

The thought of Abigail, immediately joined by that of Magnus, detonates inside Isaac's ribcage. He’s been climbing for a while already, but the memory of their death drives him faster. He skips steps and pulls himself up by the banister when possible. The wall to his right grows rougher; dark patches appear, then spread, overtaking the dingy plaster. They seem botanical: not the mold everywhere in Canaan House, but drier and firmer. Vegetable.

He needs to find Jeannemary. He has somewhere to be, a meeting to attend, but he can’t recall much more than that. He needs Jeannemary and he has to get going.

The stairs are not attached to the exterior wall. A small gap, no larger than the width of a man’s hand, opens between the wall and the steps. Despite the weight and texture of the stairs, their obvious sturdiness, the gap preys on his mind. A tapestry could blow in suddenly, blind and trip him, and his foot could catch in the gap. He could go tumbling down, or be caught here forever.

None of these worries are reasonable. He knows that just as surely as he feels their danger. The contradiction there irritates him, but only slightly, just a few grains of sand caught between a toe and the strap of a sandal. He is much more concerned about Jeannemary’s absence and how he’s supposed to go about finding her. That, and the gap between the stairs and the wall. It’s yawning in his mind, widening into a chasm, exerting a call on him that’s nearly tidal.

Wards can’t protect him from this.

Of course, wards didn’t protect him from whatever that horror was that killed him.

He pauses, foot lifted, knuckles going pale as he grips the banister. The truth of it slides cleanly through him and changes everything. He was killed, that’s right. He’s dead. He’s stuck through with a hundred holes, large and small. He's really, truly dead and gone. 

He ought to be crossing the river right now. Why isn’t he fording the river?

He has to apologize to Jeannemary and finish this climb. _Priorities,_ as Magnus would say. _They’re not just for primaries, haha!_

The plaster is overtaken by bark — shaggy strips of it, rough to the touch. When he looks up, the shadows above criss-cross like enormous branches. He sees the undersides of leaves, each one larger than his own skull; they're pale in the gloom and move against each other, whispering.

He can almost make out the shapes of prayers and hopes, bundled below the leaves like parasitic berries, hanging heavy.

Before he reaches the nearest bundle, however, the stairs give way to a wide landing. Unlike all the previous ones, this one has an exit. He depresses the bar and steps out of the stairwell.

The corridor into which he steps stretches out to the west. This is a direction that he knows does not exist in Canaan House. They ought to be a hundred meters over the open sea now. Yet the corridor is a long, dingy one, utterly ordinary, lit with institutional tube lights and studded at regular intervals with identical doors. Each sports a frosted-glass window and nameplate. Some are decorated with clippings, small cartoons and notes and even pamphlet-thick sheafs while others are austerely bare.

At the very end of the corridor, there is a tiny lounge composed of mismatched, poorly-upholstered furniture and a low table with cracked veneer. Right in the center of the dull-green couch, feet up on the table, sprawls Jeannemary.

“Where _were_ you?” She stands up, punches him in the shoulder, then grabs him into one of her rib-crushing hugs. “Isaac.”

He buries his face in her hair. She doesn’t smell like she should. Ashes, not woodsy sweat. Tears and metallic blood.

“How’d you...?” He looks over his shoulder. “How’d you beat me?”

She jerks her head to the left. There’s a dull metal autodoor in the shadows, rather than an office door like the rest of the corridor. “Uh, lift? Ever heard of it, very modern, highly convenient.”

He sinks down onto the table. He’s dead and this is surely an illusion, but the table creaks nevertheless.

“What happened?”

She glances down at her torso and sticks a fist through one of the two enormous holes there. “Looks like I got... _boned_. And good. Ha.”

“Ew, seriously?”

She elbows him sharply as she sits next to him. “It’s funny, come on.”

“Again, _ew_.”

“Never thought we’d get boned by the same boner,” Jeannemary adds, a little dreamily. She has her chin stuck into his shoulder, their heads tipped together. “We never had the same type before! One flesh, one end was really more a threat, huh?”

“You’ve been hanging out with Nav too much,” he says. He squints at the last office door, the one opposite this little lounge and elevator. There are a few memos and cartoons taped to the glass, but not many. The nametag is old and difficult to make out. Y.A. Ma, Ph.D, M.D., D.Necr (Hons.). Office hours: Yes.

“She’s rad.”

Isaac has to admit she is. “Yeah, true.”

They wait and wait, long enough that his feet no longer hurt from the climb and all the sweat dries to a clammy chill down his back.

“I don't like this,” he says. “This waiting feels wrong.”

“What’s the problem? Where else do we have to be?”

“This isn’t right.”

“Nothing’s been right since we landed, Ike.”

He exhales gustily. “Okay, but that’s not, like. A good thing!”

“Just an observation, dude.”

“This doesn’t feel right,” he says. He knows full well that he’s being stubborn and probably whiny and most definitely annoying, but there’s nothing else to say. “We’re just...stuck here? Waiting. We died for no fucking reason and no one’s even ever going to _know_? What the unholy _fuck_ , JM?” 

He’s never cursed quite so much in front of someone else, ever. In his diary, sure, but that’s not the same.

His voice has risen with his hysteria, with the ever-strengthening conviction that he is _missing_ something. There has to be a reason, something, somewhere, if he could just find it.

“Hey,” she says, wrapping her arm around him and pulling him even closer. “Hey, hey. Breathe, buddy. Breathe.”

He snorts, but it turns into a sob. “Why? Don’t need to. ON ACCOUNT OF HOW WE’RE DEAD.”

A soft _ding_ sounds, then the wheezy sigh of autodoors pulling apart. They turn as one, startled. Necro-fire dances around Isaac’s fists before he can think of it. JM stands, assuming a defensive stance in front of him. She has no sword, not even a dagger but when did that kind of thing ever stop her?

No spiny, bellowing bone monster stampedes off the lift. Instead, there’s a slight man, taller than Jeannemary but skinny, nearly swimming in his worn clothes — corduroy trousers gone pale at the knees and in the seat, shapeless knit waistcoat incorrectly buttoned, and button-down shirt open at the sweat-yellowed neck, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“Sorry, sorry, so sorry, all apologies,” he’s saying as he fumbles with a keyring and tries not to drop his satchel and overstuffed file folders. “I’ve kept you waiting, inexcusable, so sorry...”

Isaac tries to help him with his bag and files, but their feet shuffle and each over-anticipates the other, getting off-balance. The folders drop and spill, and Isaac and the professor kneel, bump heads, scrabble to pick up the mess. Jeannemary watches them wrestle and taps her foot. _Necros_ , he can almost hear her scoff. If Magnus were here, he'd chuckle in agreement.

The professor’s face is lined, and there’s silvery stubble in his smile wrinkles, but his eyes are luminous. Uncanny and ageless, they’re cosmic skies and pulsating nebulae; looking into them, just briefly, makes Isaac’s balance waver and collapse, even though he’s already kneeling.

“Inexcusable,” the professor says again. He stands with effort, gratefully accepting Jeannemary’s steadying hand, and succeeds in unlocking his office door. Inside, all is shadowed; even when he flips on the light and gestures them to take a seat, the room feels like a tiny part of a much larger whole.

“How, dear Baron, lovely Sir Chatur, can I possibly make amends for the wait?”

Jeannemary shrugs before casting a Meaningful Glance at Isaac. _Now’s your chance,_ she’s saying. _Nerd out._

“What are we doing here?” Isaac demands. He doesn't mean to sound so rude and impatient. Or perhaps he does. He doesn’t care quite so much any longer about what someone will think of him. What’s the danger in being judged? He’s already done. He deserves to be forgotten. He squeezes Jeannemary’s hand for reassurance and sits up as straight as he can. “Sir. What’re we doing here?”

“Here...” The professor looks around the tiny-but-not office and massages the back of his neck. “Or down in Canaan House? Or in life itself...?”

“Damn necros,” Jeannemary mutters. Isaac can’t blame her. 

“You’re quite right,” the professor tells her. He sits back in his desk chair, tipping it back. “Three questions, then. Boons for you brave children, from me, by way of apology and restitution.”

“We’re not children,” Isaac says automatically. 

He smiles at that, but he looks sad about it. “When you get to be my age, everyone’s a child, more or less. I apologize.”

“I’ll go first,” Jeannemary says. Bracing one hand on the edge of the professor’s desk, she leans over as far as she can. Having been on the receiving end of her fierce attention, Isaac sympathizes with the brief flicker of alarm that crosses the professor’s face. “Our families. How can we be sure they’ll be safe?”

“How is anyone safe, these days?” His voice is mournful, his mouth downturned.

“Stuff it,” she spits back. “You said boons. I want a boon. I want our brothers and sisters to be okay. Send them to the Sixth, exempt them from Cohort service, whatever you want. Just make sure they all get to grow old and cranky and have lots of ugly grandkids.”

He nods slowly and makes a note on the top of his memo pad. He’s left-handed, Isaac notices, then wonders why that should be significant.

“And you, Your Lordship?” he asks Isaac, his voice as mild as if they were agreeing on take-away orders. “Two boons remain.”

As usual, Jeannemary took care of what really matters. This leaves Isaac casting around for something that won’t sound ridiculous in comparison. He doesn’t know what to say.

Jeannemary elbows him, then tugs the sleeve of his robe until they’re huddled together. “Ask him again what we’re doing here.”

“Who cares, though?”

“You do,” she says.

“Yeah, but so what?”

Rolling her eyes, she noogies the shaved side of his head, going really rough with her knuckles, until he says, “Ugh, quit it! Fine, I’ll ask.”

They sit back up and compose themselves. The professor is waiting, motionless, his hands folded on his desk. His eyes have no bottom. They’re the light of eternities. Isaac glances away and clears his throat.

“What’re we doing here? In Canaan House, I mean, and by ‘we’, I mean _us_. Me and JM, not everyone else.”

“We’re not in Canaan House,” the professor admits. He sounds very gentle, almost regretful. “Does that change your question?”

“Why aren’t we in Canaan House?” Jeannemary demands.

“I cannot return there,” the professor says. “Surely, young as you are, you both remember that.”

“Shiiiiit,” Jeannemary breathes and draws closer to Isaac. He shifts slightly to meet her as epiphany blossoms around them, before them, gathers them up in a new understanding of everything. They know, now, that the mild-mannered, rumpled professor before them is also their Necromantic Lord and Emperor, The King of Undying and Regent of Living Again.

His smile is a little crooked and there’s some salad in his bottom teeth. “That’s two. One more.”

“Wait!” Isaac says. “You didn’t—“

“Your cavalier's question superseded your request,” he says. “Would you like to use it for your third?”

“No,” Isaac says.

“Technicalities,” Jeannemary grumbles as she sits back in her chair. “Fucking necros. Everything’s a goddamn _game_.”

“Games have rules and consequences,” the professor replies. “They are far from frivolous.”

 _Far from frivolous_ , Jeannemary mutters mockingly under her breath and looks away, chewing her bottom lip.

That’s true, Isaac knows, and yet it’s an incredibly unsatisfying, even enraging, answer. Jeannemary narrows her eyes at the emperor and drums her heels against the legs of her chair. Isaac would like to join her, but he has, he realizes, just one chance to get this right. 

He ought to feel nervous. This is like every test he's ever taken _plus_ facing down the bone monster, yet he is at ease. He can do this. They're dead already; facing god, what is there to fear now?

“Explain as fully and completely as possible,” Isaac says, lifting his voice, finding some confidence somewhere, who knows where, “how one becomes a Lyctor and, further, how I might personally can accomplish that feat.”

Jeannemary laces their fingers together and squeezes. “Nerd,” she says fondly.

Isaac nods but doesn’t look away from the emperor.

“I could give you both another life,” he tells them. “How’s that sound? Any house you like, anywhere in the Held territories or original home-moons.”

“Lyctor,” Isaac replies.

“Unending wealth,” the emperor suggests, inclining his head toward Jeannemary. “State-of-the-art training facilities, the finest rapiers and teachers.”

“Divide and conquer doesn’t work on us,” she tells him. “And I had two great teachers already. Magnus and Nav. Answer Isaac’s question.”

“Anything you like,” the emperor tells Isaac. There are slight hollows beneath his cheekbones, where the skin is crepey and the stubble is sprinkled. “Libraries and laboratories. Regency of an occupation, perhaps? Carry on your father's work?”

“Lyctor.”

“I don’t want to tell you,” the emperor admits. He rests his cheek in his palm, his elbow planted in the mass of files littering his desk. “Please don’t make me.”

“We can’t make you do anything, dude,” Jeannemary says. “You’re the OG necro. We just trust that you'll do the right thing.”

“Fidelity,” the emperor murmurs.

“Fidelity,” Isaac agrees. “Lyctorhood: process and purpose, please.”

“You weren’t supposed to die,” the emperor says instead. “I’m so very sorry about that.”

Isaac shrugs and Jeannemary puts in, “Yet here we are.”

He is a tired man, that much is obvious about the emperor. Tired and careworn, beset by worries, more than Isaac and Jeannemary could possibly imagine. _Hey,_ Isaac thinks, _at least he’s not dead. Could be worse._

The emperor turns that weary smile on him. So he can read minds. That probably shouldn’t be a surprise.

“The cavalier has to die for the necro to take their soul,” the emperor says. He sounds calm, but that might simply be exhaustion. There's very little space between _calm_ and _desolate_ : that much Isaac has learned since coming here. “Tridentarius murdered hers. Nonagesimus accepted Nav’s sacrifice. You —“ He points at Jeannemary with a trembling finger. “— must pass while _he_ integrates you. Absorbs your essence. Takes you in.”

“Gross,” Jeannemary says. "Like, beyond ick?"

“So gross,” Isaac says. He turns over the facts in his mind — death, soul, integration — like Abigail always said to do. Every problem is composed of smaller problems that are, potentially, easier to solve.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure I don’t swing that way?” Jeannemary says and snickers. “If I did, _definitely_ not for Ike.”

“Thanks,” Isaac mutters, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Babe, I love you, you know that,” she says and he grins. “But anyway, we’re both dead, so what gives?”

“What,” the emperor says slowly, forming the words as if they’re alien clicks, “gives?”

“Yeah. What gives?”

“How do we do the... _integration_ , heh,” Isaac says and clears his throat, “since we’re both already dead?”

The emperor sits back to rub both palms up and down his face. He says something, but it’s indistinct.

“Homie, if we were fused, can you even imagine?” Jeannemary says to Isaac. “My good looks and strength, your big creepy neurotic brains? Unfuckingstoppable!”

“We’re gonna get _so_ much ass,” Isaac replies. Why that's the first thing that comes to mind surprises him as much as anything. It’s not that getting ass has ever been anything like a goal before, but that was because it wasn’t going to happen, so why aim for it? Now, however. Now.... They could get so much ass. He can't wait to see just how much.

Grinning, head bobbing as she nods fast, Jeannemary shakes him by the shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“That’s not...” The emperor drops his hands and stares at them. “Are you serious?”

“What else do we have going on?” Isaac asks.

“We want to be lyctor,” Jeannemary says, “and that’s _valid_.”

“So valid,” Isaac adds. He lifts their clasped hands. "Fuse us, daddy."

"Oh my god," Jeannemary says, burying her face against his shoulder. "You didn't."

"I so did," he replies, cheek against the crown of her skull.

"I love you."

"Same. Over the river and back," he tells her. 

The emperor's eyes open and the dark around them grows. Shadows cohere into stalagmites and caverns; the lights in the office flicker and dim. Jeannemary and Isaac forget the extents of their skins and minds. Her sword arm twines around his writing hand; the necromantic lore in his brain swirls through her extensive [HOARD[ of underground wrestling stars and their career statistics. 

They both want to kick ass. They each believe the other capable of great things.

They're more than halfway there.


	3. super mortes

Lyctors have more meetings than duels. Ianthe is complaining about running late and not receiving an advance copy of the agenda, while Harrowhark is trying to ignore her and drink some of the excellent tea the emperor gets in.

The emperor pauses at the doorway to their conference room. "Ladies, before we start, I'd like to introduce the third of your number." 

"Excuse me?" Ianthe demands. Her chair screeches as she stands up quicker than light.

Harrow moves a little closer to the emperor. "How's that?"

"Jacob, of the Fourth," he continues as if he'd never been interrupted. 

"Jake. It's just Jake."

The person who steps into the light is as tall as Ianthe, but broader-shouldered, with an easy swagger and brilliant smile. They're dark-skinned like Jeannemary was, hair in complicated swirls and rows that hug half their skull. The other half of their head is bald, like Isaac always wore his droopy-rooster 'do.

"Heard you took down Magnus and Abigail's murderer," they say to Harrowhark, grasping her bony hand in both of theirs. "I owe you like a million life-debts."

"Nav did most of it," she says.

Ianthe is hissing and spitting at the emperor: breach of protocol! Rules forbid! Unfair!

Rolling their eyes, Jake squeezes Harrow's hand. "Nav was the best."

"For you," Harrow adds. "She did it for you."

Jake blinks a few times and sucks on the inside of their lower lip. "Thanks."

"Make her proud?"

Jake throws back their shoulders and passes a palm over their complicated hair. "That," they say, testing out the pleasing timbre of their voice, "is most def the plan."

**Author's Note:**

> The encounter with the emperor riffs on episodes from the TaNaKh and the Katha Upanishad.


End file.
